didn’t answer his phone. When I called his home phone, I didn’t recognize the boy who answered it, but he called for Rachel, whom I did know.
“Hey, Mercy,” she said. “I don’t know where Stefan is. He left last night to go talk to Marsilia and hasn’t made it back yet.”
“Is that usual?” I asked.
“It’s not unusual,” she told me, “but I wouldn’t go so far as to say it happens all the time.” She paused. “She wants him back and he lets her think that might happen. He thinks that you are safer as long as she thinks she can bring him back into the fold.”
“Is that dangerous for him?” I asked slowly.
She laughed bitterly. “She’s a vampire, Mercy. Of course it’s dangerous.” Her voice softened. “But he’s not dumb—and he’s not an easy mark. He’s been playing games with her and worse for centuries and he’s not dead yet.”
I didn’t correct her—Stefan had been dead for a very long time. But Rachel had not had an easy life and I liked her. I tried not to pick at her unless I had to.
* * *
• • •
Adam went right to sleep. I had more trouble. I felt like we were all standing around waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Senator Campbell was a walker like me—or rather, like my friend Hank. Though he didn’t know it. Should I have told him?
That did answer the question of whether I’d know a walker when I met them—so the Salas family’s resistance to witchcraft must have been because they were witchborn. I felt a little uneasy that Elizaveta knew it now, too. When Arnoldo called, assuming he would, I would see if I could talk him into moving elsewhere.
Was it important that Campbell was a walker? Was it important to the witches? Did they know?
“Adam,” I said.
“I’m asleep, Mercy. It’s a guy thing. We like to sleep after sex.”
“Frost wanted to take over the North American vampires, and he mostly managed it,” I said.
“Yes,” he agreed, rolling over so he could look at me. “For this you wake me up?”
“He intended to bring them out to the public,” I said. “So they could hunt like vampires of old.”
“That’s what he said,” Adam agreed.
“But that would be stupid,” I said. “If the vampires come out—especially if they are engaging in hunting in ways that terrorize the human population—they’ll be hunted into extinction.”
“Yes.” Adam’s voice was patient. “He’s not the first idiot to attain power.”
“He corrupted and then funded the Cantrip agents who kidnapped the pack and tried to force you to kill Senator Campbell.”
“Yes,” said Adam slowly—and I knew he saw it, too.
“You thought that they didn’t care if you were successful or not, thought they had a backup plan to kill him. All they wanted was to pin the attempt on werewolves.”
“Yes.” Adam sat up. Then he got out of bed and started to pace as he ran through the patterns that I was painting. He had a better understanding of politics than I did because he actually trod the halls of power occasionally.
He stopped to look out the window. He was naked and I got a little distracted.
“Sorry,” I said, “I was distracted by the scenery. What did you say?”
He grinned at me, showing a flash of dimple. “I said, what if we assume that Frost wasn’t stupid?”
“Yes,” I agreed.
“Let’s say that he was a witchborn vampire,” he said.
“Yes,” I agreed.
“It’s like your miniature zombie goats,” he said. “The important thing isn’t the ‘miniature’ or the ‘goat,’ it’s the ‘zombie.’ With Frost, the important thing isn’t the ‘vampire.’ It’s the ‘witchborn.’ If we look at it like that, then he was engineering the downfall of werewolves and vampires.”
I nodded. “And then he wasn’t being stupid. So what does that have to do with what the witches are trying now?”
“Damned if I know,” he said, after a long moment.
I pulled the covers up under my chin. “Me, either. But it clears up a few things.”
“So that was what was keeping you up?” Adam asked.
I nodded.
“You can sleep now?”
“And so can you,” I promised.
Adam shook his head slowly and lowered his brows, his eyes flashing gold for a moment. “Nudge,” he said.
* * *
• • •
I fell right asleep afterward, feeling warm and comfortable and safe.
That didn’t last long.
I dreamed that I was walking along a road. It seemed familiar, somehow. I couldn’t quite place it until I realized that there was someone walking with me.